Livin' In America

Huh.

Let's try out a thought experiment.

Think of any headline from the muslim world, then add "12 dead".

As in:

"Pakistan brewery produces Muslim world's first 20-year whisky. 12 dead."

Well, ok, maybe not for that one.

"Hamas chief in Moscow for talks on unity government. 12 dead."

Ah. That's better.

In the wake of today's 400+ fal in the DJIA, following a fall in Chinese stocks, this makes for a worrying read.

Environmentalism for thee, but not for me.


UPDATE: This is hysterical: Al Gore is paying himself via his "Carbon Offset" purchases. What a hypocrite.

This is interesting, especially in light of this.

Seems like some illegal immigrans are coming for more than the "jobs Americans won't do."


UPDATE: Huh. I'd never thought about this.


UPDATE: This is what I expect for Atlanta, in about 20 years. Sigh.

Damn. Just damn.

(BTW, "Tom and Jerry" was an MGM Production.)

Makes me wonder if this is actually real:

Wow! "Global Warming," or "Climate Change," or whatever it's now called, really is a new religion.

Cue G.K. Chesterton.

I've always thought there was something desperate about the Iranian pursuit of nukes.

Then I come upon this.

Could it be that the mullahs in Qom want to be able to destroy the world if their regime is toppled?

Well I'll be damned!

When Hillary announced for the Presidency, I gave her the office based on the strategy she was adopting and the storm of MSM support that would propel her campaign.

And then along came David Geffen.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Democrat contributors are looking at him, and then at her, and thinking "Huh. Maybe she isn't inevitable."

New Orleans! New Orleans! So good they named it French!

New Orleans is a welfare swamp enlivened by the occasional transexual hooker. Let it sink.

Religion of Pieces adherent kills a female Pakistani Government Minister, because she's a Pakistani Government Minister.

As usual, NOW has no comment.

Now, if he'd been denying her an abortion....

Huh. Well, I guess it's time to start killing kids now, before they come after us.

Maybe the Italians have a point: if each generation is half the size of the last, we won't see so much of this GreenPeace bullshit. I mean, it's hard to win a war if you start out with half as many troops as the opposition.

Wait! The US is running at just about replacement rate. So, let the fun begin. Face it, kids, we're older and we have more insurance.

On the way home I was listening to the BBC World Service. (I *love* XM Radio!)

Anyway, one big story was the Prodi government presenting its resignation. Apparently, the Italians want no more US troops in Vincenza, and they don't want to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Bottom line: Italy's voting itself out of NATO.

I sometimes think the worst thing the US did was defend Europe during the Cold War. Since we were willing to bear the burden, the Western Europeans stopped worrying about the primary responsibilities of government, things like national defense, and gave themselves over to the secondary impulses: social programs and the like.

Once they had the social programs, they began to stop having children. ("I won't need kids of my own to take care of me in my dotage, the GOVERNMENT will do that!")

The end result is that Western Europe's mettle is bred out. Unwilling to defend themselves, they've also stopped breeding. Average female fertility in Italy is 1. Italy's population is halving every generation. How to pay for all those social programs! Oh! Import muslims to do the scut work, and PAY THE TAXES!

Before very long, Italy will be Europe. Unwilling to defend itself, unwilling to breed, treaties increasingly abrogated, and a growing muslim population.

Eventually Europe will transition from simple decadence to active truculence. What American bases will exist in Italy when the populaton is majority muslim?

Sic transit gloria NATO.


UPDATE: Pat Buchanan has a similar take.

A world without America...

U.S. Active Duty Military Deaths per 100,000 Serving- 1980 through 2004.

This is old news, but I didn't want to let it pass unremarked.

So, the Dixie Chicks won lots of Grammy Awards. Well, isn't that special?

All it says is that the Grammy Foundation finally feels free to come slinking out to award trash talk against the United States.

As the article has it:

The standing ovations the Chicks received Sunday illustrated how much the political climate has changed regarding the Iraq war, and even Bush.

Note that it's "Bush." Not "the President," nor "President Bush." No, just "Bush."

When I picture the decision makers at the Grammy Foundation, I see a mangy, hyena-like cur, crawling up to take a bite out of the body politic before skulking back to its midden.

I think this is what now passes for a profile of courage.

Another episode of SJS: Sudden Jihad Syndrome.

Brought to you by the Religion of Pieces.


UPDATE: Maybe not so sudden.


UPDATE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday the wife bought a 4GB USB jump drive for under $60. She also bought a 2GB SD card for her camera for under $40.

Back in 1980 I bought two 2114 1k x 4-bit chips (to make 1KB) for 10 pounds ($20, or thereabouts). I can now store about a million times more stuff for the same number of dollars. Adjusting for inflation, it's probably ten million times more stuff for the same constant dollars.

(Cue the stories about trudging from home to school and back through snow, uphill both ways, with barbed wire shoes to keep purchase on the ice, and *liking* it.)

(Or don't)

On that basis, I fully expect human consciousness executing in silicon (or something better) in the next quarter century.

Compare this story and this story.

The Telegraph (story #1) has this:

We have, post-Dunblane, what are said to be the toughest gun control laws in the world. They have actually proved strikingly ineffectual.

Gun crime has doubled since they were introduced. Young hoodlums are able to acquire handguns - either replica weapons that have been converted, or imports from eastern Europe - with ease.

While the AP has this:

In England and Wales, the total of 46 homicides involving firearms in 2005-2006 was the lowest since the late 1980s.

Catch the spin? The Telegraph rightly points out that gun *crime* has doubled, while the AP focuses on the number of "homicides involving firearms."

The Telegraph is rightly pointing out that the UK is less safe since Blair disarmed the general public, while the AP provides him a fig-leaf.

So, pushed by Obama and the nutroots end of the Democrat Party, Hillary's now calling for the retreat from Iraq to begin in 90 days.

Democrats are calling this war ChimpyBushitlerMcHalliburon's failed war. In fact, they're calling the last six or so years ChimpyBushitlerMcHalliburon's failed administration. Amplified and spread by their wholly-owned subsidiary, the mainstream media, that's been a handy tool with which to gain political power. They played the game ruthlessly and well, and they won. Good for them.

But consider the reality. There have been no more al Qaeda attacks in the US. Saddam's gone. We've killed al Zarqawi. We've wounded his successor, al Masri, and taken out a lot of his leadership. Bin Ladin's not been heard from in a couple of years, to the point where al Zawahiri no longer mentions him. Al Qaeda's strategy of killing as many shi'ites as possible, in order to provoke a bloody civil, and then regional, war has not worked. Jihadis are being killed in large numbers. Most of Iraq is pretty peaceful. Given time, the peace could be won.

(Incidentally, the past six or so years have been good for my investment portfolio.)

The Democrats can't stomach this, because they can't stomach the notion of Bush being seen as anything but an abject failure. Shamed as they were by the Pantsless Rapist Huckster from Hope, they want Bush looking worse, so Republicans understand mutually-assured political destruction, and will be willing to leave future Democrat monsters alone.

What the Democrats don't understand is that in the rest of the world this is seen as America's war. The retreat is going to be America's retreat. And both the blame and shame of the regional war that will follow will be America's blame and shame.

It's my hope that wiser counsel prevails. My fear is that it's with O'Leary in the grave.

Today's AJC had a story about Iraq; specifically about al Qaeda's tactics for shooting down American helicopters. Going through it, I came across this oh-so-funny locution: "al Qaeda in Mesopotamia". Back to the top of the story. Ah. Written by someone at the New York Times.

You see, at the NYT the prevailing orthodoxy is that al Qaeda never had any contact with Saddam Hussein. Hussein never supported al Qaeda. Secularist versus Religion of Pieces nutcases. Oil and water. Etc. There never was an "al Qaeda in Iraq". Uh-uh. Nosiree bob. No al Qaeda in Iraq.

And there still isn't. No. Instead there's "al Qaeda in Mesopotamia". Ha! Thank God for the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Without them, the NYT wouldn't have a hook to hang a fig-leaf.


UPDATE: You've heard the joke about the Irishman who was presented a spade and a shovel, and asked to take his pick. Right?


UPDATE: Link changed, but references the same story, after the AJC story became unavailable.

Tiger?

An oldy, but a goody.

Rep. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson (D., Louisiana) will be overseeing FEMA.

This should simplify his evacuation when the next hurricane hits New Orleans.

Hell, it may even get him a secret deposit box at Fort Knox. For those FBI moments.

As expected, the House votes aid and comfort to al Qaeda in Iraq.

Let the slow bleed begin. Slow Congress. Military bleed.

Where Democrat politicians go when they die.

Random thought for the day, from Jonah Goldberg:

Earth got about 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer in the 20th century while it increased its GDP by 1,800 percent, by one estimate. How much of that 0.7 degrees can be laid at the feet of that 1,800 percent is unknowable, but let’s stipulate that all of the warming was the result of our prosperity and that this warming is in fact indisputably bad (which is hardly obvious).

That’s still an amazing bargain.

Definitely.

Perfect timing! Just as Mookie bugs out - because of the surge, the Democrats are criticizing the Commander in Chief - because of the surge.

If memory serves, less than a year ago Democrats were demanding more troops on the ground. Now that more trrops are on the ground, they're demanding fewer troops on the ground. They really ought to be patting themselves on the back and braying that the Commander in Chief is finally listening.

But they can't, can they? I mean, they're so worried about the networked hippie end of the party (Dailykos, MyDD, etc.) - the people who want an IMMEDIATE END TO THE WAR! DOWN WITH CHIMPYBUSHITLERMACHALLIBURTON! - that they can't even begin to take credit for their position of only a couple of months ago. Hence they find themselves in the bind of having to denounce a successful strategy that they themselves were demanding less than six months ago.

It's 1968 - 1975, all over again. At the end of it all, the US public will again find itself unable to trust Democrats when the defence of the nation is at stake.

Democrats: Never missing a chance to miss a chance.

This is unbelievable!

The Democrat party has never recovered from the period between 1968 and 1975, and here's another sign.

In 1968, the Democrat Convention in Chicago was overrun by hippies. End result: today's netroots types make a fuss, and Democrat apparatchiks roll over. Don't want the hippies back out in the streets, dontcha know. Don't want America to see the real thug face of America's Socialist party.

In 1973 Democrat apparatchiks cut off all aid and support to the government of South Vietnam. By 1975, the North Vietnamese had taken South Vietnam, the re-education (i.e., concentration) camps were open, and boat people were dying on the high seas in frequently futile attempts to escape the communist government.

The Democrat apparatchiks never lived down the disgust of the American people, for having abandoned an ally in the field. So, they're not going to abandon Iraq outright.

No, they're going to "pursue a slow-bleed strategy."

As in slow-bleed our troops.

As in slow-bleed those Iraqis who believed in us.

As in slow-bleed those Iraqis who voted.

As in slow-bleed the power of the Executive branch.

As in slow-bleed the patience of the American people.


Why strive for leadership when you can strive for power? That's the question our political class is putting to us this day.


It's a pretty shameful day to be an American.

I wonder why a man called "Sulejman Talovic" would enter a mall and gun down a bunch of people.

Sulejman. Hmm. Surely not a member of the Religion of Pieces?!?!!?!

Oh, and if so, will you hear about it on the news? No, just another set of random killings by a random person who just happens to have a muslim name.

My God! Can this be the country that gave us Napoleon?